Why You Should Consider Inbound BEFORE Your Next Site Redesign

There are two marketing initiatives I hear about all the time: 1) Adopting more inbound strategies, and 2) planning a website redesign.

And both are great! But the big question most people face when both initiatives come up at the same time is ... which do I do first?

Redesigning your site first and then implementing inbound seems like the most logical approach. Why would you want to adopt inbound marketing strategies when your website is “not ready” for the public? Or you might flip-flop it so the redesign comes after you nail your inbound marketing strategy. Learn from the metrics and data first and then develop the site accordingly, right?

So ... which way is better? Inbound marketing before a website redesign, or after? It’s a trick question, actually. In my opinion, neither is better.

Why? To me, both “staggered” approaches have their own share of missed opportunities. I’m an advocate of the simultaneous execution of a website redesign and implementation of an inbound marketing strategy. Let's talk about why.

The Common Arguments Against Simultaneous Implementation

A very common objection that I hear for separating a website redesign from inbound adoption is resource allocation. Designers, coders, webmasters, and the marketing team are all involved with the finished product during a website redesign. The last thing someone would want to do is shove more work on the entire team’s plate.

But thinking of it as additional work is actually looking at it in the wrong way. Why? First, a lot of the assets built through inbound -- a business blog, calls-to-action, landing pages -- are actually components that should be developed to align with the redesign.

I also hear the wonderfully vague “marketing strategy” objection, which when I drill down, can typically mean a number of things. These are the most common:

“We don’t want to introduce inbound marketing until the website is complete.”

“We want to see how the website performs before launching any inbound initiatives.”

All are valid reasons. But the solution is simple, and it applies to all three above examples: introducing inbound marketing at this stage helps foster team alignment with the inbound strategy. The designers, marketers, coders, webmasters, you name it, will all be involved with the adoption of inbound marketing, and in understanding of the overall vision. Rather than playing a giant game of telephone after the redesign, everyone will be on the same page from the get-go.

Luke Doran over at marketing agency Southerly explained this phenomenon really well with a cake shop analogy. (Yum.)

"You're walking down the high street, pass a cake shop, and you stop because something in the window display has caught your eye. You walk into the shop because the cake looks delicious and you want it. When you get into the shop, you see the cake immediately, a sign with a price, and an eager shop assistant with a large "Pay Here" sign. You leave the shop cake in hand, ready to indulge, and vowing to return again soon.

Now imagine the same situation, but when you walk in you can't find the cake you saw in the window. When you eventually find it there's no information about how much it costs; you have to ask a shop assistant for that information. And when you're ready to pay, you can't find a register or shop assistant. So you just leave and go to the shop down the road.

The goal of the first shop was to get cake out the door and into customers' bellies. And they did it. We all want a website like the first cake shop. So when we redesign a website for a client, we ensure that we fully understand their goals right from the start so we can build those goals into the redesign. This ensures our clients (and their customers) get a website that mimics the first cake shop. If we tried to bolt those goals onto the website after it was redesigned, we'd end up with cake shop number two."

Don't end up with cake shop number two.

Website Redesigns and Inbound Marketing: Friends With Benefits

Website redesigns and inbound marketing having a sort of symbiotic relationship. For the non-science nerds out there, a symbiotic relationship is an occurrence in nature when two organisms rely on each other for survival. For example, a clown fish will clean a sea anemone of harmful bacteria in exchange for protection from predators.

The same type of relationship exists between a website redesign and an inbound marketing strategy -- a shiny new website redesign makes inbound marketing look good and in return, inbound marketing helps a website become a functional, lead generation machine. The key to a successful symbiosis (and ultimately, marketing success) is to understand the different ways that each mutually assist the other.

What follows are three key areas where a symbiotic relationship between inbound marketing and a website redesign is absolutely necessary -- and ultimately beneficial -- when executing on both activities.

1) Website Structure

Have you ever been cooking something, only to realize you forgot to add a crucial ingredient to the mix after your culinary delight has been in the oven for a half hour? I have. It’s a huge bummer.

The same type of disheartening situation can emerge when you don’t incorporate inbound marketing assets in a website redesign. Deciding how you'll integrate key elements of inbound marketing into the site structure is critical in the first iteration of the new website -- it saves money and time, prevents wasted resources, cuts down on iterations, and most importantly, tees up the site for success upon launch.

All too often, I’ve seen marketers bring on a slick new website that’s built for design -- not functionality -- before adopting inbound tactics. Suffice to say, we end up making a lot of changes (all for the better) that could have been avoided if we strategized before, and integrated during, the website’s facelift -- like CTA placement, landing page creation, and lead capture form integration.

Instead of waiting to add inbound marketing best practices to the website after launch, do it throughout the process. Do it right. The results of your redesign will be much more satisfying.

2) Content Alignment

Content creation is obviously a cornerstone of any company's inbound marketing shift, and most companies start (smartly) with a business blog. And anyone who has started business blogging knows there's no time like the present to begin. Search engines take a while to index website pages, so the sooner you can get pieces of content up, the less likely you’ll be starting from ground zero once the website redesign is complete.

Don’t wait until the site launches to begin blogging -- start yesterday.

To hold up its end of the bargain in the symbiotic relationship, a website redesign will provide the opportunity for a keyword- and topic-focused inbound strategy. Old copy can be rehashed, new keywords and topics can be researched and integrated, and additional pages can be created to support opportunistic keywords. The redesign is the blank slate and inbound marketing is the chisel.

3) User Experience

I can confidently say that the companies that utilize inbound marketing most effectively are ones that develop unique buyer personas, define the customer buying process, and adapt the website’s user experience to best suit both variables.

Structuring a website to suit buyer personas is no easy task -- it takes research, planning, and careful consideration to create web pages that are suited to different audiences. As you can probably assume, this is the hardest piece to put in place retroactively after a website redesign.

And if buyer personas weren’t enough to consider, it’s also important to structure the website to facilitate the buying process of a target customer. Not everyone is ready to buy when they land on a website’s homepage, so tailoring the content here (and other key places) is imperative to fostering a high visitor-to-lead conversion rate.

If buyer personas and the customer buying process are clearly defined and implemented throughout the website’s redesign, it saves a lot of headaches once the site goes live. No one needs more headaches.

Website redesigns and inbound marketing have a lot more in common than you might think -- and each commonality holds the opportunity to benefit both as a whole. So if you’re considering both but are unsure how to scope them out, I strongly recommend executing simultaneously, so you avoid any missed opportunities and wasted resources later on.

It may seem like more work up front, but it pays off. Trust me, I’ve been there.

What other ways can a website redesign benefit from inbound marketing perspective? Or vice-versa?

You're walking down the high street, pass a cake shop and you stop because something delightful in the window display has caught your eye (a monstrous and very tasty looking chocolate cake). You decide to walk into the shop because the cake looks delicious and you want it (or any of its brothers and sisters). When you get into the shop, you immediately see a big display that features the cake you saw in the window. The display clearly tells you what the cake is made of and how much it costs. Immediately next to the display there is a large sign that says "Pay Here" under which stands an eager shop assistant ready to take your money and give you your cake. You leave the shop cake in hand - ready to indulge yourself, vowing to return again soon. You have had an enjoyable experience which clearly directs you down a linear path that results in a transaction

Now imagine the same situation as before, but when you get into the shop you can't see the cake you saw in the window and you have to search high and low for it. When you eventually find the cake, hidden at the back of the shop, there's no information about how much it costs and what it's made out of; you have to ask a shop assistant for that information. You're ready to pay, but you don't know where to go as there's no "Pay Here" sign, so you have to search for the till (cash-register) and can't find it. You decide to leave the shop and vow to try the cake shop over the road. You have had a frustrating experience that results in a shorter visit than you intended.

The first shop has been built with a clear goal in mind - to get the customer to buy the cake in the window and as such that's exactly what the customer does. It's inbound in action and working like a dream. The second shop clearly hasn't been built with a specific goal in mind and it shows; the customer leaves before they buy a cake. It's inbound gone awry.

We all want a website like the first cake shop, what inbound marketer wouldn't? So when we redesign a website for a client, we ensure that we fully understand their goals right from the start so we can build those goals into the redesign. This ensures our clients (and their customers) get a website that mimics the first cake shop. If we tried to bolt those goals onto the website after it was redesigned, we'd end up with cake shop number two. And who would want that? I know our clients wouldn't!

Very well written article. Inbound marketing should be a final step in every web design. Every business needs marketing to buy the attention of people, similarly website also needs inbound marketing, to make it popular.

Great article Alec and definitely food for thought. I'd love to see a follow up article that touches on how to "manage up" when the redesign isn't completely in your control. I've been in larger organizations where digital is an afterthought and decisions are made by committee. So how do you demonstrate to the HIPPO that what you're saying is right? User Archetypes are sometimes hard for non-marketing people to understand, but it's much harder to argue with a data / analytics approach.

Really great piece Alec, and I couldn't agree more. We are an inbound agency that also does a lot of web design work and I really feel that websites need to be designed with the sales funnel in mind. How you work calls to action into your homepage and interior pages is key to achieving conversions, and if this isn't taken into account during the design stage, its like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole!

It's taken a month or two for the creative department and the web dev department over here to see the light, but now that they have had the special champagne that is inbound, they are sharing - and building - good examples of web sites that are using a beautifully crafted inbound strategy into an elegant web site. Hurrah! Finally! It's not unlike when a client gets the idea for the first time; you can see their faces light up. In many ways, a client who gets the concept is a much more valuable prospect than one that insists on the old models. Now, we just need a segmentation question on a landing page for THAT item ;)

Thank you Alec. This article hits at the heart of what we face with 95% of our clients, and 100% of prospects. We offer both IM and web design but I find it difficult to emphasize the relationship. That's why I really appreciated your metaphor for the symbiotic relationship.
Is there data or case studies showing success of taking this approach? This would be extremely helpful in making the case.

My question is different: Why I should consider inbound at all?
Let me explain. My website is an independent online Yellow Pages directory, with more than 150,000 Listings.
Not many prospects Google for "Yellow Pages" - they Google for "Oakland CPAs" or "San Francisco Dentists" etc.
I have literally 1,000s of email addresses from Listings and use email to market services to CPAs, etc.
My website is successful when a prospect Googles "Oakland CPA" and clicks on a link that takes them to a CPA's website I have a Listing for. The link is a redirect to the CPA's website and I count the clicks. The prospect is probably not aware of, or care, that they got there via http://SFBay.SmarterYellowPages.com
This is an example of a Listing:
http://sfbay.smarteryellowpages.com/HL/LL/OA/OO/index.cfm/HD.4515000/AL.R/LL.M/or.151180.htm
I also count clicks on each one of the Topical Links in a Listing. I've often thought the relative number of clicks could be used to identify which topics on a website should get more attention to better convince prospects to choose them...

Hi Alec,
Excellent post. We have noticed that Parallax Scrolling Websites are really fashionable at the moment yet I have yet to find one that considers inbound marketing and onsite optimization SEO. Most of the webdesign world believes that these 2 techniques cannot be used at the same time yet we were able to accomplish it. Here is an example. www.posicionamientowebenbuscadores.com. The site is not perfect but we do believe it follows onsite optimization rules. Note the site is in beta and not optimized for IE. Please see the beta site with Chrome or Firefox.
Thanks
Carla

Brilliant article and just in the process of this myself! Having taken 6 months (on a dreadfully poor "content holder" of a website) to start ranking top for my main keywords, I want to make sure I stay there and also generate a lot of business content for the local area and industry. Considering inbound marketing and a nice platform for what I have planned has been key for the redesign. Its better to spend months building and planning for the future than weeks and rushing to get it out there.

I agree Alec,
having everyone on the same page during this process has always made alot of sense to me. Saving time not having to redesign anything or go back and make too many changes was my biggest concern. Thanks for putting all of your ideas together.

Engaging discussion. I speak with business and sales leaders who continue to treat their web sites as
catalogue or menu of items,services, and technology versus a space where prospects and solutions can engage. There is a lack of understanding, it appears, regarding the "evolutionary" capabilities of web engagement thanks to technology and in-bound strategies and practices.
Web design and
In-bound activities working hand in hand create a dialogue that instructs and shapes your interactions and on-line engagements. You now have ears as well as a voice.

I think your point is valid for a lot of topic areas, not just inbound marketing, but other areas like SEO. When you consider how your website will respond to and work with inbound marketing or SEO, it is a win-win...your website structure is more versatile and comprehensive and your inbound marketing will function with less effort and more efficiency or your SEO will be easier to optimize with less compromise. It is always difficult to get collaboration amongst so many stakeholders with different perspectives, but if you can do it, it is worth it.

Juan Vega

I'm presenting my marketing plan to a new project with a mix between inbound and outbound marketing, from my point of view this is quite possible but just because I'm started getting into the inbound strategy and I don't want to make any mistake.
It's alright to mix them?
Am I extremely wrong writing this?
Thanks
PD the article was great

I my opinion the redesign of a website should happen concurrently with inbound marketing. Neither of the two is completed in a day. In a company that has many employees, the person responsible for redesign should do his/her work while those for inbound market do theirs.
What is important is that both teams know what is to be done meaning that they all most have had discussion on what should be done before they set off, each person doing what he/she is supposed to do.
In case of a solo-entrepreneur who does everything by his/herself, you can so plan your work such that you can redesign and also do inbound marketing at the same time. All you need is a well planned time table of all you tasks.

Alec,
I totally agree in that the website redesign should go hand in hand with the inbound marketing. I think you said it best when you stated, "build those goals into the redesign".
It's much easier to do so when redesigning the website, then finding out afterward that your inbound marketing won't quite work, or be as effective. These 2 elements really do go hand in hand, and if done correctly result in that "first cake shop" we all want.

Laura Belgrave

It seems to me that the newest trend in web design is the usage of enormous photos and slideshows "above the fold," with little regard to content, which is pushed way down if it's visible at all beyond superlative words and stock phrases. Of course, as you pointed out, web design needs to suit a given audience, but it strikes me that fewer people pay attention to that than used to be the case. Form over function is never a solution, and it certainly does little for inbound marketing.

We have a lot of client that first really confident with their design. They only think that design is the key. They are right, nothing is wrong about that. But if you have a great web design, excellent design, without inbound marketing, no one will now who are you. Inbound marketing make your design look powerful and that great design make your inbound marketing work well. So this collaboration is the key of success. Great article...

I assume it's implied but I don't see a mention of "What's in it for me"
WIIFM in designing the website. In short, your web copy should have many more "YOUs" than "WE" or "US" etc.
The point is to not market your product or service. Instead, explain to prospects the end results (or solutions) they'll experience as a result of your product or service.

Inbound should be the heart of any company's new site ... unless you're from outer space, inbound marketing will have the highest lead conversion and building your website around anything else is outright ludicrous. Let's face it, if they haven't called you and land on your website, you need to impress them ... but what comes after impressing them? Them calling you! Make an impression with a professional and beautiful website and entice them to pickup the phone or fill out a contact form to be entered into your mailing list at the very least. Even if they don't become a customer now, they will in the future.

Hi Christine,
Now a days there are soooo many quality WP templates out there it's not even funny. One thing you can try is looking under "inbound" or "marketing" on ThemeForest.net. In my experience, they have the highest quality in WP themes. Try to stick to Elite authors.
Good luck!

Start with the end in mind, great article, I've always been a fan of the soft sell, and integrating IM into the site redesign can create a beautiful flow that builds community and allows the person to be happy about being sold.

Recently I have been going through my entire websites site structure and editing and improving everything I can to make it more user friendly. I have also updated numerous blog posts by adding content and re-writing parts with greater detail. It makes sense to keep on top of your site to make sure visitors come away with the best experience and want to hire you!

Cordless avaya 5420 phones could be equipped with several features and provide communication solutions to small businesses, home business and consumer applications. The most effective way to receive those updates.

Great article. Inbound marketing should be the main part of every web design. What ever type of business you have you need marketing just get noticed.alot of people still think build a website and thats it....wish it was that easy.

I only wish this article was out 3 years ago when I went through a complete website redesign with my previous employer. After 2 years online with it they are still struggling with integrating inbound marketing. A lot of changes were necessary after launch and are still being worked out.

Great article Alec! A combined strategy really is the way to go. With inbound, every aspect of your marketing initiative is symbiotic so it makes sense to incorporate them with the digital components of your business. Web design is the perfect arena for this marriage, and you pointed out they key reasons why. Unfortunately, many businesses overlook this and do not realize that putting in the work at the beginning to have an integrated inbound marketing strategy will pay off in the end.
Cheers.

Thank you for the tips Hubspot. Can you provide some SEO and inbound tips for photographers who are running image heavy or flash based sites? I know it's not optimal, but are there any tricks to helping capture more traffic?

Thought that your article Alec, it was both interesting and very informative.
Thank you for the reminder, so important to consider both inbound marketing as well as design. I am definitely going to chat with a particular client to clarify a few of your points!

Sound article - well worn ground for any marketer with a DM or B2B background. Never a bad thing to be reminded of the basics though! Am currently working on a site redesign and the biggest factor in it's success will be that we were working on an inbound campaign before tackling the site, so we have all our segmentation, messages, calls to action, customer journey, data and outbound follow-up in place and ready to go the day the site goes live. By happy coincidence, the inbound campaign came first (I'd be lying if I said I'd planned it that way - but hey let's take advantage of good fortune and the client's evolving objectives) and having done it this way around with this client, will do my best to ensure I can replicate on future projects. Actually Alec I have to disagree on one point - it is in fact LESS work up front, and like you I have found it to be paying off. Less work arises when you look at the big picture and set an overall objective which then flows down to the specific channel, in this case web and DM. Some way to go before site is live but thanks for a refreshing artlice that covers the basics!

Good blog - got me thinking about my first two HubSpot clients - one rebuilt their website then got into Inbound with HubSpot. The other got into HubSpot and plans to redo their website at a later date. Different journey's but both showing gains across the board.
My take on this is that HubSpot gave them the means to make headway and generate more leads.

Good blog - got me thinking about my first two HubSpot clients - one rebuilt their website then got into Inbound with HubSpot. The other got into HubSpot and plans to redo their website at a later date. Different journey's but both showing gains across the board.
My take on this is that HubSpot gave them the means to make headway and generate more leads.